3 AM
by Measured
Summary: AU. "It's your turn to shop tonight," Legault says. Heath and Legault work together to rob a convenience store for their next meal. Legault/Heath.


Title: 3 AM  
Series: FE7 (au)  
Character/Pairing: Legault/Heath  
Rating: PG-13  
Author's note: FE kink meme! Kleptophilia au with Heath and Legault robbing a convenience store. I have recently realized that a Legault/Heath request has never been filled at this kink meme. I am rectifying this ATROCITY~ right this instance. (Also, apparently this pops my Legault/Heath cherry too. I could've sworn I wrote some of this, but I can't find any.)

**.**

"It's your turn to shop tonight," Legault says.

"What?" Heath looks up from the crate he's been sitting on. The alley is narrow with decayed bricks and busted concrete. Entropy, that's all it is.

"You have to learn. What if I get injured?" Legault says.

If Legault gets injured, they're dead. If they stop running for a moment, they're dead. Heath lets out a long breath and tries to quell the rising panic which is always there, just under the surface waiting for him. Breathe in, breathe out.

"You've got one chance. Don't make it and we won't eat tonight. Keep your hood up, it'll keep you from the cameras."

Legault adjusts Heath's hood and hides the very noticeable green hair with a silver streak. Heath thinks that this was just a ruse to touch him. Of course, it is Legault, after all.

"We're not disabling this time. Really, no points without _some_ danger," Legault says. He flips open his lighter and the flame flickers. He smells like cigarettes, cheap beer, and the lingering afterglow of the smoke from the place they'd crashed the night before. Vagrants around a trash bin fire last night, and probably this night too, unless Legault can score enough for a ratty motel room. Heath's face heats at the memory – Legault refers to that last room as "their honeymoon."

He dusts off his knees and gets up from the crate. He can see the store on the opposite side of the street. Behind him is a rusted fire escape. A cat yowls behind him, and Heath flinches.

"No need to jump at every little thing," Legault murmurs. "Save some fear for when we're actually in trouble."

"I'm fine," Heath insists a little too quickly. He squints to the store on the other side of the street. He feels Legault's hands snake up the back of his hoodie and caress along the scar at his left shoulder blade. He flinches only a moment then before relaxing. Only partly, though, because Heath never relaxes fully. Despite the touch, he focuses on the mode of attack. There's no parked cars, no one on the street. It reminds him of being under Commander Vaida's charge, though Legault is a far gentler master.

"What about he cashier?" Heath says, terse. He resists the urge to look around him for eyes that might be watching.

Legault smirks. "Leave her to me."

Heath sneaks a glance into the store. There's a triangular monument of soda boxes. Something about a contest that he doesn't have a chance in hell of winning. He never did have luck but bad luck.

They walk in, slightly apart as if they are just two strangers who happened to come in at the same time. There's no other customers around now, just them and the cashier under the flickering florescent lights. The cashier is a plain sort. Thick glasses, a horsey face. The florescent light only manages to make her skin more sallow. She probably doesn't get a lot of attention – she probably has a mother who tells her she should settle for the first guy that comes around.

Heath's hands are sweating. He isn't quick like Legault. He isn't street smart, and doesn't know the codes. All he knows is the rigid conduct of combat, the controls of flying at a 63 Wyvern. The wind in his hair, following orders – that's what he knows.

He reminds himself that without Legault, he'd be dead. People don't run from Bern and live to tell about it. Without this, they won't eat tonight. He looks up, trying to pretend like he actually cares about this damn place. He spots the camera right out. It's a big and bulky thing, right up there, announcing its presence. He sneaks a glance Legault's way. The girl is playing with her coarse hair, captivated by his sweet talking.

He doesn't have much time to search out his quarry. He sees rows of chips. He wonders, his mind racing, if he should get baked, onion, or spicy barbecue? His mouth is dry. No, not chips. They rustle. Can's of beans would drop to the floor too easily, and leave noticeable bumps under his hoodie. His mouth is dry, he desperately wants to hit up the square refrigerators in the back, but a large water bottle is not as easy to slip into a pants pocket. There's marshmallow cream and chocolate bars, graham crackers all the ingredients for smores. Dry cereal boxes are impossible to put under his shirt. Heath looks from product to product, but all he sees are the problems that taking that one would cause. He has no idea how long it's been. He wants to look to Legault, but knows that's not allowed in this game.

"Well, I'm sorry m'dear but it seems I'll have to be _going_," Legault says, a little louder than necessary. Heath knows that's his cue.

"Oh, your number. I have to have it," Legault says. "I can't _live_ without having it."

Heath grabs the nearest thing he can reach and just holds it under the arms of his hoodie. He leaves before she looks up, and goes to the other side where the shadows and the stray cat await him. It seems an eternity until Legault joins him. He remembers his last watch, blue, ordinary thing. What he can't remember is what fates these watches had. He sees them and their demises: His military issue is chipped, his ordinary, one falls in a river. When Legault finally returns, Heath want to embrace him in sheer relief. He isn't a touchy person, though, so he bites the urge down.

"Show me," Legault says.

Heath pulls out his paltry offering. A single candy bar he had grabbed more in desperation. It isn't even a brand he likes. He doesn't know what a nougat is, but whatever it is, it's disgusting.

Legault laughs. "There's teenage girls who could out filch you, Heath. Ones with too much eyeliner who are desperate to show off how utterly _unique_ they are."

Heath hangs his head. They can't risk another run tonight. The cashier might have discovered it at this rate. She could be calling the police at this very second.

"Then, I suppose it's a good thing I went shopping, hmm?"

He opens his mauve coat. Heath knows from experience that it's littered with pockets hidden in every stitch. There's pockets hidden in pockets. Near every one is filled. Candy bars, chips, beef jerky, dozens of those little hostess treats, and even some chips. There's even wonder of wonders _drinks_ for his parched throat.

Heath is almost surprised to not find a while Slurpee (or the damned _machine_) stuck down there.

"How–"

"I have quick fingers, don't you know?" Legault says, in his teasing, mocking _suggesting_ tone that Heath knows all too well.

"I filched some money earlier. We can buy a hot meal and save these for when we're on the move."

"You said we'd go hungry if we didn't get this," Heath says accusingly.

"That's the mentality one needs when thieving."

"I would've been less wound up if you would've itold/I me that little detail," Heath says, irritation edging in.

Legault chuckles. "You would have been just as nervous."

"Probably..." Heath pushes his bangs out of his face and runs his hands through his hair in a nervous gesture.

"Still, it was rather alluring..."

Legault pushes him to the wall. His coat is so well padded that Heath can barely even feel all the goods he's got stuck in there. He attaches himself to Heath's neck like those bloodsucking fiends of lore. He nibbles, his hands running under the hoodie to stoke over the scars over Heath's chest. He's covered in scars, like any soldier, but Legault seems to find them irresistible. Then Legault takes his mouth like Vaida used to conquer on their charges. With teeth and tongue, opening him up and biting his lips as he kisses. Heath tastes blood, and he isn't sure if it's his own, or Legault's. It's all Heath can do to keep up. He feels his wrists being pressed to the cold bricks, one of Legault's legs pushing his own apart. He moans and it doesn't sound like himself, but then, Legault knows how to elicit these unfamiliar, animalistic sounds from him. Sounds that in normal moments he would deny being associated with him.

There's a siren in the distance and Heath freezes. Even Legault stops mid-lick, more annoyed than anything to look around for the flashing lights that could very well be the death of them.

"I'll take a raincheck. We need to put some distance between this town and us."

All Heath can do is nod dumbly and take Legault's hand when offered. The stray cat lets out another yowl, and they run from the streetlights, and off into the night.


End file.
